


ClintCoulson 11 - Nutcracker

by tisfan



Series: Stocking Stuffers [10]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aw Clint no, Christmas, Frustration, M/M, Nutcrackers, Shopping, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 00:54:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12972168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Clint has dubious taste in decorations.Phil has dubious taste in men.Tony... has a stupid amount of money.





	ClintCoulson 11 - Nutcracker

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ayremis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ayremis/gifts).



“That,” Clint said, looking up at the gaudy light display on the top shelf. “I want that.”

“In front of our home?” Phil was less enthusiastic, but they’d already been to four stores before Clint had found what he wanted, and Phil was more of a throw-up-a-string-of-lights and call-it-good kinda guy. Clint, on the other hand, had grown up in the circus, and he had actual legit  _ feelings  _ about Christmas and decorating.

“Yep,” Clint said. “Have to have it.”

Well, it wasn’t like Phil minded. Mostly. They’d finally moved out of SHIELD supplied housing -- which hadn’t kept them from sharing a bed, but there really wasn’t much privacy, or space -- and into their own house. And it was their first Christmas together. Clint had declared that decorating was a must, and so he’d been hauling Phil all over the place, looking for the perfect tree, the perfect ornaments, the perfect lights, and the perfect…

… giant life size polyresin nutcracker with an automatically opening and closing mouth and that randomly raised its life size polyresin sword when someone approached it.

The price tag was a little off-putting. And the display itself slightly more creepy Christmas than bringing Holiday cheer, but Phil considered himself a reasonable guy. He didn’t have any particular objections to the thing, although it certainly wasn’t something he’d have selected on his own. Who knew, though? It could be one of those things that became a  _ thing _ . A relationship  _ thing _ . Phil was looking forward to having those.

“You have eight hundred dollars burning a hole in your pocket, Barton?” Phil asked, peering up at it.

Clint shrugged. “I can afford it,” he said. 

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” an overly cheerful voice said. “Help you with something?”

“Yep,” Clint said. “I want one of those.”

The employee stared up at the festive monstrosity. “Right, well, that’s an A-17, so they should be right this way.”

He led them up through the aisle, dodging other shoppers, employees, and one display of solar lawn lights that had fallen over. Phil paused to pick some of them up and put them back in the stack, where a half-dozen more promptly rolled off the pallet on the other side.  _ Fuck it _ , he decided, catching up with his boyfriend.

“Aw, nutcracker, no,” Clint was whining. The slot on the shelf where the boxes were supposed to be was empty.

“Hang on, hang on,” the employee said. He whipped out a phone wrapped in a ridiculously orange case, did a scan of the SPU code. “It says we have six, hang on, just a moment. Stay here.” He pointed to a spot on the floor like he was afraid that Clint and Phil would wander off.

Clint stood right where the guy pointed, admiring some of the other decorations from his vantage point, while Phil perused the shelves to see if one had gotten misplaced. 

How, he wondered, did anyone misplace six giant nutcrackers?

“This is Gerry,” their salesperson said, coming back up, “and she’s in charge of the garden center. So she’s going to help you out, okay?”

Gerry was a tiny, tiny woman, probably in her mid-seventies, with a smudge of dirt on her nose and a practical tilt to her mouth. “You want that? You’re sure? Come on, this way, I think we got some more of these big’uns in the outdoor area.”

For a short, elderly woman, Gerry walked very quickly. Hell, Clint and Phil were both trained government agents, and keeping up with her as she dodged around displays and talked a mile a minute over her shoulder, was taxing. In the few minutes it took to cross the store, she’d told them all about two botched deliveries, the fact that pointsettas were on sale, but she wouldn’t advise buying them because they were within three days of wilting, that they could apply for a store credit card and get twenty-percent off their first purchase, and if they wanted to, please feel free to ask her, or any other store rep, and…

It was cold in the garden center; the whole area was open on the sides and the wind blew straight through, smelling of snow and exhaust and sausages from a street vendor outside the building. Phil pulled his jacket tighter and shivered. It’d been hot in the store proper.

“Well, they were here, I coulda sworn…” She stopped in front of a large pallet of decorative boxes, none of which was labeled as an A-17. “David! David!”

A third employee appeared -- David, apparently -- from behind a display. “Hey, did you find out about the 1063-RR cluster? I’ve been online with--”

“Not jus’ yet. Do you know what happened to them nutcrackers we were s’posed to have? All the overstock should be here?”

“Dunno,” David said. “We got a new delivery in th’ back, though, truck just left outta here like twenty minutes ago. I really need to know about them 1063s, though, so if you could--” he was talking to air, Gerry having walked off, gesticulating wildly. “Huh. Okay, well, you all stay here, I bet she’s going to check the back.”

“She couldn’t have left us inside?” Phil complained. “It’s cold out here.”

Clint leaned against Phil’s back, arms around his chest, keeping him warm. “Better, babe?”

“You do give off a lot of body heat,” Phil replied. He leaned back into that warmth, snuggling contentedly.

“It’s my superpower,” Clint said smugly.

“I thought your superpower was always being in the way,” Phil said.

“Well, that, too,” Clint said. “I can have more than one superpower. It’s allowed.”

Gerry was gone longer than expected -- how hard was it to find a six foot tall nutcracker? Hard, apparently. She came back, shaking her head.

“The inventory says we have six, but see, there’s a little star by it,” Gerry said, holding out her phone. “That means it wasn’t actually verified on delivery. That happens a lot this time of year, really--”

“Excuse me, miss,” another customer said, “this’ll only take a minute, but I was wondering if you knew where I might find suction cups to hang on windows to hold lights up with?”

“Oh! I saw those!” Clint said, excited. “Like, just a few minutes ago, because I wondered what they were for, but yeah, this way, they’re over here.”

Phil found himself abandoned by his boyfriend, and blinking politely at Gerry. “So, you don’t know where the nutcracker is?”

She shook her head. “It might not even be here,” she said. “This time of year, we’re so busy that people don’t always check in the stock, we just take it on faith that we got what we ordered.”

“So, my boyfriend really wants that thing, do you think you could sell us your floor model?”

“Oh, no, no, we never do that, even after the holiday is over, people expect a discount on it, and it’s not listed in the inventory at all, so we can’t account for ‘em.”

“Since you’re missing six already, I’d say you’re not accounting for them now,” Phil pointed out.

“Look, what I can do is call our store out in Passaic, maybe they have one,” Gerry suggested. “Inventory says they have five.”

“You want me to drive all the way out to  _ New Jersey _ . On the weekend. During the Christmas season, on the hopes that their inventory is better than yours?”

“I don’t want you to do anything, young man,” Gerry responded, tartly. “You’re the one who wants a nutcracker porch deco. I’m telling you where there might be one.”

Phil heaved a sigh. “Give me the address.”

***

“Aw, decoration, no,” Clint whined.

Phil took a deep breath. “Can you call the other store and see if they have any? Like, do an actual floor check? We already drove out from the city, and Westville’s not that much further down the road, but I’d rather be sure than chase after another wild goose.”

“Inventory shows they got fourteen of ‘em,” the Passaic employee insisted. 

“And yours says you’ve got five, and the store back in Manhattan said they had six, so that’s eleven six-foot nutcrackers you’ve managed to misplace between two stores,” Phil said. “You can see why I might be a little leery of your computer’s inventory report?”

The Passaic employee sighed like making a phone call was the hardest thing anyone had ever asked of him, ever, but punched in the number.

“We don’t gotta get it,” Clint said, softly. “We can just go home an--”

“You want it,” Phil said.

“Well, yeah, but--”

“Then we’re going to see if we can find you one, dear,” Phil said, patting Clint’s hand. “It’s all right. We didn’t really have anything else to do today.”

“Driving around New Jersey isn’t somethin’ any sane person does for fun,” Clint said.

Phil chuckled at that. “It’s not that bad, really. I’ve been worse places.”

“Like?”

“Tahiti.”

Clint made a face. “That joke’s old, Phil. Like, seriously. Old. And it wasn’t funny t’ start with.”

“Okay,” the Passaic employee said. “They did a floor check, an’ they got at least four of them, so, what’s your name?”

“Coulson,” Phil said.

The guy turned back to his phone, then, “Yeah, okay, so when you get there, go up to the service counter, and they’ll have one all ready to go, okay?”

“Thank you for your help,” Phil said.

The employee didn’t quite roll his eyes, but Phil got the distinct feeling that he  _ wanted _ to.

“Can I shoot him?” Clint asked, when they got out of earshot.

“If we’re going to be exacting about it, then yes, you’re perfectly capable of shooting him, with whatever your weapon of choice is, from your bow all the way to the staple gun on aisle twelve, but I would greatly prefer it if you did not, because I really don’t want to deal with any more paperwork about your disruptions of normal holiday commerce,” Phil said.

“You are no fun,” Clint said.

“That’s not what you said last night,” Phil pointed out.

“And it’s not what I’ll say tonight, either,” Clint said, sneaking in a stealth grope. “But you’re no fun  _ right now _ .”

“You wanna swap tonight for right now, go ahead and shoot the guy.”

“Hmmm, no.”

***

“You did  _ what _ ?”

“Well, he was here first,” the woman behind the customer-service desk said. “And he bought out the entire stock--”

“We were  _ on our way _ ,” Clint protested. “What did he need with  _ twelve  _ nutcrackers?”

“He was here,” she repeated. “And we don’t hold orders for people, that’s just not good business practice.”

Phil’s eyebrows went way up. “How long ago did he leave?”

The woman shrugged. “Do I look like a stalker to you?”

“No, you look like a bitch, but you know, close enough,” Clint snapped. He smacked the palm of his hand against the desk and stomped out.

“Thanks for shopping with us, come again.” the desk lady said, overly chipper.

Phil considered himself a reasonable human being, but Clint’s plan of shooting store employees suddenly seemed a little less ridiculous and a lot more satisfying.

***

“Sorry we wasted th’ whole day,” Clint said, slumping up the sidewalk toward their house.

“It wasn’t a waste,” Phil said, grabbing Clint’s hand and giving his fingers a squeeze. “I like spending time with you. Just because you don’t always get what you want doesn’t mean it was a waste of--” Phil stumbled to a halt.

“What the utter and complete  _ fuck _ ?”

“What he said,” Phil repeated. “Only with less swearing and more shock.”

The entire walkway was lined with nutcrackers. Six to each side, raising their swords in unison, mouths opening and closing.

“Hey, guys! Agent Agent, Legolas! Merry Christmas,” Tony Stark said, stepping out from behind one of the displays. “You like ‘em? I saw on social media that you were looking for them and--”

“You’re the one who bought out the entire stock?”

“Well, not me, personally, no, because really, no, I have shoppers for that sort of thing, but--” Tony’s brilliant smile faltered. “You don’t like it?”

Clint and Phil exchanged a glance and said everything they needed to say right then. They could explain to Tony how they’d driven all over the state trying to find the nutcracker and come home disappointed and hungry and cranky…

Or they could just say, “We love it. Thank you, Tony.”

“Merry Christmas, Mr. Stark,” Phil said.

“Merry Christmas to you, too, Agent Coulson,” Tony said, offering a hand.

Phil took Tony’s hand, yanked him into a hug, and pounded him on the back. “Thank you, really,” he said. 

Clint hugged them both, squeezing hard. “Yeah, you’re the best, man, just… wow.”

“So, like, are these in the song?” Tony asked.

“What song?”

“The Twelve Days of Christmas?”

“Like, what? Twelve nutcrackers nutting?”

“Thanks for that, Clint,” Phil said, covering his eyes. “Now I’m going to think about Christmas displays jerking off for the entire rest of the season.”

“Annnnd on that note, I’m sure I have something more important to do,” Tony said. He jogged up the walk toward his very expensive car. He turned halfway up the walk and waved. “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good wank.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> This may or may not have been partially based on the epic saga to find a christmas tree that happened this year. (aside from the Tony Stark part...)


End file.
